Alan Ladd Jr. Named President of MGM/UA

Alan Ladd Jr. on Wednesday was named president and chief operating officer of MGM/UA Entertainment Co., assuming the jobs handled by Frank Yablans until the company was restructured seven weeks ago. Yablans lost the chief operating officer’s title on Jan. 21 but continued to serve as vice chairman until Monday, when he resigned from the Culver City-based firm.

MGM/UA also named two new presidents for its motion picture production companies. As sources predicted earlier this week, the company appointed Jay Kanter as president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Co., and Richard L. Berger was named president of United Artists Corp.

Ladd, Kanter and Berger joined MGM/UA after Chairman and Chief Executive Frank Rothman announced the company’s decision to establish separate production and marketing operations for the two film divisions and recruited Ladd as president and chief executive of United Artists Corp. At that time, Ladd was also named vice chairman of the parent company, gaining equal standing with Yablans, who became president and chief executive of the MGM film unit.

At the time of the January split, Rothman said each unit would have an annual production budget of about $120 million and be expected to produce and market 10 movies a year. Through a spokesman, the MGM/UA chairman said Wednesday that the production strategy “is being rethought, as is the separation of the marketing. But inasmuch as there are still two heads of the production companies, they will each have a full schedule.”

Berger had served as UA’s senior vice president of production since Feb. 5. He is a former president of Walt Disney Productions, serving from March, 1983, through October, 1984. Before joining Disney, he spent 16 years at 20th Century Fox Film Corp., working with Ladd and Kanter from 1977 until 1979, when the latter two left to form Ladd Co.

Ladd Co.’s financial and distribution deal with Warner Communications Inc. ended last spring. Kanter joined MGM/UA Entertainment as president of worldwide production for the motion picture division in July, 1984, while Ladd became an independent producer affiliated with both MGM and Columbia Pictures until he agreed to take the executive post in January.